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Bringing Customers to You with Inbound Marketing

This presentation, originally presented at the Photonics West 2014 conference, shows marketing and product managers in the optics & photonics industry how to adapt their marketing tactics to engage new customers.

Of those that do practice IM, what’s your experienceWhat type of content generates the most leads?What channels generate the best qualified leads?How are you tracking web leads for sales follow-up action? [2014 notes: 3-4 attendees of 35 were already practicing inbound. 1-2 spent more on web than ads &amp; tradeshows.]

[Would you rather find customers – or get found by them? If you answered the latter, then you’re ready for inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is the integration of search engine optimization (SEO), social media tactics and content creation. Each of these tactics is a proven performer when separately implemented. But, when strategically synchronized, the result is significantly reduced costs, increased sales, and improved ROI. – From 2012 Inbound Marketing Handbook - MarketingSherpa LLC, a MECLABS Group Company]Sharing is caring and inbound is about creating and sharing content with the world. By creating content specifically designed to appeal to your dream customers, inbound attracts qualified prospects to your business and keeps them coming back for more.Major themes:Content Creation- You create targeted content that answers your customer&apos;s basic questions and needs, and you share that content far and wide.Lifecycle Marketing- You recognize that people go through stages as they interact with your company, and that each stage requires different marketing actions.Personalization- As you learn more about your leads over time, you can better personalize your messages to their specific needs.Multi-channel- Inbound marketing is multi-channel by nature because it approaches people where they are, in the channel where they want to interact with you.Integration- Your publishing and analytics tools all work together like a well-oiled machine, allowing you to focus on publishing the right content in the right place at the right time.MIC Language: Thought LeadershipReaching them when and where they care about you

For most B2B, outbound has its place but budgets are being adjusted to make room for more inbound – at the expense of outbound.Together inbound and outbound marketing for what we call Integrated Marketing – that is, marketing strategy and activities (inbound and outbound) that are coordinated among channels and tactics. Integrated marketing proves to be very successful for our optics &amp; photonics clients. MIC LANGUAGE: shows like Photonics West aren’t going away. They are clearly an important part of your marketing and sales strategy. But inbound makes those efforts more effective, in staying in front of those leads when and where they’re ready, and will begin to overtake activities like these in effectiveness. Once customer [ASE] finds that he gets 3x the leads in a day via the web as he does while standing in the booth. Another dropped 2 shows from his plan this year to increase his inbound activities.

For Inbound Prospects, we’re asking them to make an investment in time and money. We’re asking them to reallocate funds and stop doing some of the stuff they’ve been doing for decades. We’re going to have to get sales and marketing in a room together and make them set goals that they agree to hold each other accountable to. We’re going to ask them to publish information that they’ve long used as a competitive advantage in 1:1 solution selling situations. We’re going to ask them to let people leave comments on their website and invite their prospects to connect with them on the same site where their college son talks about his fraternity parties.

WE’re living in a trust based economy. Buyer behavior has already changed. Think about the last time you bought something as simple as an appliance. You became aware of something new, or that you’d need a replacement, saw an ad, heard about a sale, read an article, read a bunch of product reviews, talked it through with your neighbor, priced it online and checked it out in the store. 57% percent of your decision is already made before you ever engage with the company. For your customer, that number’s even higher. Engineers don’t want to be sold to. They want to do their research and find their own solution.

Studies show… Our findings confirm that for this industry. One customer saw 250% more traffic 9 months after his site went live, and was getting 30 leads a month at the 1 year mark, when he received 0 from the web before. [Empire]

Change doesn’t happen overnight9-12 months to ROIFirst traffic, then leadsDepending on starting point, perhaps 250% traffic growth; rankings improvement, then improved lead quantity &amp; qualityActivity = ROIThe pace of ROI is based on activity. Prolific content creation, daily social media engagement, and monthly email marketing among other activities, speeds ROIMake the call: You’ll still need to sell. No matter how successful your inbound strategy, you still have to ask for the sale. If you’re starting from scratch . . . If your current digital marketing hasn’t been a strategic focus before, you will need to play catch-up with your marketing. Even with an extra push of content creation, etc, ROI will take longer.

Sign up for an Inbound Marketing AssessmentRequires some prep on your part1 hour on-line meeting with PLS principal to review results and discuss practical use of Inbound Marketing in our industryLanding Page for Sign-up [not yet created]Based on Your Business Goals, You’ll Learn:The marketing activities that will best meet your goalsWhere IM can help meet your goals The effort, obstacles, &amp; timeline to achieve goals

Customer questions: How do you know what your users want? Is social media effective? We’ve had a bad experience with Google recently---our search engine ranking for some key words plummeted after Hummingbird until we added a Google+ account. What’s your experience with this? Tell me more about Google+Do videos work?

4.
Show of Hands
 How many of you already practice inbound marketing?
 Who’s on the hook this year for more leads?
− Better leads?
 Whose customers primarily find you – on the web?
 Spend more on the web than advertising & tradeshows?

12.
Expectations
First traffic then leads
Activity = ROI
Pick up the phone
It’s a long game

13.
Get Started
 Free Marketing Assessment for attendees
− Input: Some prep and info from you; our research and toolkit
− Output: Score, actions to drive up effectiveness
− Value: $3500
 Sign up at launchsolutions.com/SPIE or leave a business
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